Kim Possible: Bailout
by recon228
Summary: What if Team Possible's greatest danger didn't lie in their missions, but in the methods used to get to them? When an explosion forces them to bailout over the high Sierra's, Kim and Ron find themselves fighting more than just the elements to survive.
1. Explosion at 33500ft

_**This story is inspired by and dedicated to Lt. David A. Steeves USAF, who never gave up flying: even when it cost him his career and questioned his patriotism.

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**Kim Possible: Bailout**

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_**Disclaimer:** As of this writing, I still do not own Kim Possible or anything affiliated with it.

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**Chapter One – **Explosion at 33,500ft  
_By: recon228

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_

The warm mid-May sun was just beginning its decent into the horizon as Kim Possible glanced out the Plexiglas cockpit of the aged military jet-trainer she was riding in. She watched the scenery below change gradually from harsh brown desert, to tan farmland, to green forested hills, and finally to the gray and white snowcapped granite peaks of the Sierra Nevada's. Looking at her watch she saw that it was just after seven pm local time.

It had only been twenty-two minutes since she and Ron had departed from Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California's Mojave Desert, and already the small two-seat Lockheed T-33 was skimming the mountain ranges at about 33,500 feet, on its way to Middleton, Colorado.

Bringing her gaze back to the instrument console in front of her, Kim pressed the button to activate her oxygen mask's built-in radio mic. "Thanks again for the ride, Lieutenant Steeves," she said, addressing the man in the pilot's seat in front of her. She was immensely grateful that the young Air Force Lieutenant had offered her and Ron a ride home after their latest battle with Dr. Drakken and Shego.

Had Steeves not been flying out when he was, the two teens would have been forced to spend the night in Barstow. Not that there was anything wrong with Barstow, they just had school the next day and Mr. Barkin was quickly growing tired of their mission-related tardiness.

Acknowledging her remark, the red-helmeted lieutenant turned his head slightly and pressed a button on the throttle in his left hand. "Hey my pleasure, Miss Possible," he replied in a friendly southern drawl. "I'd hate to imagine what would've happened if y'all hadn't stopped that crazy blue fella' and his girlfriend from getting away with our new stealth prototype."

"Stealth prototype? _What_ stealth prototype?" responded Kim in a mockingly innocent tone of voice.

Following Drakken and Shego's apprehension, the Base Commander had called both Kim and Ron into his office and made it perfectly clear to the two heroes that he did _not_ want the details of their recent mission to get out. '_Confidentiality_' and '_need-to-know_' had become rather common phrases to both teens over the course of their missions, so the request for silence was by no means unusual to either of them.

Back in the front seat, Steeves laughed and shook his head. "Yeah right, _my mistake_. I'll tell you what though; the US Government owes both of you a debt of gratitude for what you did, especially _you_ Mr. Stoppable. Man, it must have taken a lot of guts to call their bluff and stand in front of the jet like that!" He shook his head from side-to-side in awe, still amazed by Ron's Tiananmen Square re-enactment earlier on the base's runway.

"Uh, actually, my shoe was kinda stuck in a drainage ditch," Ron replied, nervously joining into the conversation. "I was, y'know… _running away_… and it snagged. I would've taken it off and run, but when I saw them in the jet rolling toward me, I kinda froze."

Hearing that comment, Steeves actually managed to turn his entire body in the cramped cockpit and stared at the blond teen––or more specifically, the young redhead who was blocking the teen––for a few seconds before lifting the tinted visor on his helmet. "You know, son, you might want to re-word that story a little bit when you tell it to the ladies at school." His lips spread into a sly grin. "Y'know, just a suggestion."

Since Kim was blocking his view, Steeves wasn't able to see Ron blush out of embarrassment.

With an amused grin, Kim turned her attention to her partner and fellow high school Senior, seventeen-year-old Ron Stoppable, whose lap she was currently occupying in the back seat of the cramped jet. "How you doing down there, Ron?"

"Eh, not too bad," Ron replied cheerfully. He lifted his legs up onto the balls of his feet for a few seconds before dropping them back down. "Legs are getting a bit numb though. You haven't gained weight recently, have you?"

Steeves fought to hold back his laughter as Kim delivered a swift elbow-jab to her partner's ribs.

After the commotion had died back down, Steeves once again keyed his radio mic and waved his free hand around the inside of the aged military aircraft. "Sorry again about the accommodations, but I was the only one flying out today."

"It's no big, we've had to rely on worse," Kim reassured the man, though she couldn't remember ever having to strap herself against her friend's chest before just to get a ride home. She hoped the arrangement didn't make Ron too uncomfortable.

"Hey, KP," Ron spoke up in a humorous tone. "What do you think Josh would do if he found out you spent an hour and a half sitting on my lap?"

"I don't know, Ron," Kim replied mockingly. "What do you think _Tara_ would think about it?"

Hearing his girlfriend's name, Ron instantly turned several shades redder. "Oh, right… well, I guess it's a good thing this mission was classified, huh?"

"I don't have to retell all the details if you don't."

"Deal," Ron replied, giving Kim a thumbs-up. Once she had returned the gesture, he turned his attention back to Steeves. "So, Lieutenant, where are you taking this piece of junk anyway?"

"**_Ron!_**"

"What?"

"Don't insult the man's plane!"

"That's alright, Miss Possible," Lt. Steeves laughed. "This isn't even my plane. I'm actually shuttling this old Cold War relic to the AMARC facility at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona for decommission. Turns out we didn't even know we still had this dang thing until a base inventory found it abandoned in one of the auxiliary hangers last week."

"Really? So when was the last time this thing was even flown?" asked Ron, suddenly feeling slightly apprehensive about their current transportation.

"My best guess would be sometime during the Johnson Administration," Steeves replied jokingly.

Kim and Ron both exchanged nervous glances.

"Don't worry though," he reassured them. "I checked this thing out before we took off and everything's in perfect working order."

As if on cue, a small red light began flashing on both the front and back control panel.

Seeing the flashing light, Steeves reached forward and flipped a few switches on the control panel. When that failed to do anything, he leaning back in his seat and muttered something colorful and anatomically incorrect under his breath.

"What's wrong?" Kim asked nervously. "What's that light mean?"

"That's an auxiliary warning light," Steeves responded calmly. "It means our primary ELT is off-line."

"W-w-what's an ELT?" Ron asked in a clearly panicked voice.

"It's our Emergency Locator Transmitter. But don't worry; it doesn't affect the aircraft's flight."

"It doesn't?"

"Nah, you only need it if you crash." Steeves turned to face both teens once again as a playful grin spread across his five o'clock shadow. "And that's not gonna–"

He was interrupted mid-sentence as a tremendous explosion rocked the entire aircraft and plunged the teens into blackness.

---

"**_KIM!_**"

Kim was brought back into consciousness by Ron frantically screaming in her ear. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, only that she _had_ been unconscious for some period of time. Inside the crippled jet, thick black smoke had filled the cockpit, stinging her eyes and assaulting her nostrils with an acrid smell of burning rubber.

The gentle whine of the jet's engine that she had heard earlier was now replaced with a screeching howl as the plane hurtled toward the jagged mountain peaks below. Inside the cockpit, the sounds of wailing alarms could be heard going off, warning the plane's occupants of their impending doom.

As she peered forward through the thick layer of smoke, Kim could just barely make out the form of Lt. Steeves. The hotshot pilot was slumped forward in his seat, unresponsive.

Unknown to Kim at the time, the initial explosion had caused an electrical surge to shoot through the plane, which projected a shard of metal from the destroyed control panel into the young man's neck, severing his carotid artery. He had bled to death in a matter of seconds.

Below her in the back of the doomed plane, she could hear and feel Ron pounding on her shoulders and screaming in her ear. She was only able to distinguish one word from his screams…

"**_EJECT!_**"

Kim spread her legs and looked between them at the neon-yellow handle with the words _PULL TO EJECT_ printed in black at the base of their antique ejection seat. Without further hesitation she reached down and yanked the handle toward her, bringing both arms into her chest as the Plexiglas canopy jettisoned into the frigid sky, followed shortly after by the two frightened teens.

The last thing Kim remembered before unconsciousness once again took her was the stinging feeling of cold air pummeling the areas of her skin not covered by her jumpsuit, as well as the far-too-near image of snowcapped peaks spiraling towards them below.

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_To be continued..._


	2. Night one

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Chapter Two –** Night one  
_By: recon228**

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When Kim woke-up a short time later, she had no idea where she was or what had happened. The last conscious memory she had was of her scolding Ron for insulting Lieutenant Steeves' aircraft. After that… she couldn't remember _anything_!

The first noise she heard as she came out of unconsciousness was what sounded like heavy sheets being ruffled behind her. She opened her eyes slowly and looked up at the sky, noting that the reddish hues of late evening were quickly giving way to the harsh black of night. The North Star was already visible in the sky and, with a gentle breeze blowing over her, Kim knew that it was about to get _very_ cold. After a few minutes of staring at the late-evening sky, the post-ejection shock began to wear-off and she remembered what had happened.

Kim tried to call for her friend, but her mouth was so dry that no words came out. After a few attempts, she finally managed to force out a hoarse "_Ron_", but got no reply.

Fearing for Ron's safety, Kim tried to sit up and look around, but something was holding her in place. Glancing over her shoulder, she discovered that she was still strapped to her friend's chest. Both of them were lying on their sides as the orange-and-white parachute attached to Ron's harness twisted in the wind behind them, partially tangled in a small cluster of lodgepole pines.

Releasing her harness, Kim turned around and kneeled to check on her partner. She made sure to remove his helmet as gently as possible and placed it on the ground next to him. Although she didn't see any obvious injuries, she had no way of knowing for sure if he had any broken bones or internal bleeding. She didn't even know for sure if Ron was _breathing_!

Trying to remember the ABCs of her Health Class CPR training, Kim leaned in and placed her ear near Ron's open mouth to listen for breathing. She let out a relieved sigh as she felt the warmth of her friend's steady breath against her cheek.

Having ascertained Ron's immediate condition, Kim took a moment to check herself for injuries. As far as she could see and feel, there was no visible damage. Her entire body ached like she had spent a week at the gym, but there were no cuts or broken bones that she was aware of.

With both Ron and her health confirmed, Kim moved on to the next critical issue – rescue. They had to let everyone know that they were still alive and to send help. Kim could think of only one person for the job…

"_…Wade._"

Wade Load, Team Possible's tech guru, she had to contact him, let him know they were alive and to send help. Kim reached into her jumpsuit pocket to retrieve her Kimmunicator, but her hand came out empty. Kim looked around frantically for the blue device, but she couldn't locate it anywhere. Then she remembered where it was…

…shortly after takeoff Ron had complained about it digging into his thigh, so she had handed it up to Lt. Steeves to carry.

"The Kimmunicator is with Lt. Steeves," Kim muttered to herself. "Lt. Steeves is in the plane, and the plane…" she looked around the granite-strewn hillside for any signs of wreckage, but found none, "the plane is… _gone!_"

"Kim… **_Kim!_**" Behind her, Ron bolted upright and began shouting her name.

"Over here, Ron," she called out, stumbling back over to her partner. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," the blond replied, looking around at their surrounding. "How long was I out?"

"I don't know, I just woke up myself."

Ron reached down to unbuckle his harness when Kim noticed for the first time a yellow nylon cord attached to the bottom of it. It was about one inch thick and was leading downhill toward an old rotting log.

"What's this?" she asked as she reached down and began reeling it in.

About five feet downhill the sound of metal dragging across rocks could be heard and a large olive container came into view. As she pulled it over to the two of them, they saw that it was approximately 30-by-14-by-6 inches and had the words _ESCAPE AND SURVIVAL KIT_ printed across it.

"Should we… open it?" Ron asked weakly.

Kim noticed that he was starting to pale slightly, and it dawned on her that Ron suffered from altitude sickness. "I don't see why not," she replied, silently praying that the kit contained something to combat his altitude sickness. "I kinda doubt they'll find us until the morning."

Ron nodded slowly as his brow began to sweat slightly, despite the quickly dropping temperature around them.

Kim opened the container and found it to contain several neatly packed and organized items. She rummaged through the out-dated contents until she found the two items she was looking for; a packet of motion sickness pills––not perfect, but good enough considering––and a reversible survival blanket which was camouflaged on one side for hiding from the enemy and reflective silver on the other for signaling overhead aircraft. She removed the items and returned to where Ron had propped himself against a fallen tree.

"Here, take these," she ordered, holding out the packet of pills. "They'll help with the altitude sickness."

"Thanks, KP," Ron replied, tearing the package and swallowing the two pills inside. "Did you… contact Wade yet?"

Kim shook her head. "I gave the Kimmunicator to Lt. Steeves, remember?"

Ron's face actually seemed to pale even more.

"Don't worry," she tried to reassure him, "if they're not here first thing in the morning we can hike to the crash site and–"

Ron shook his head slowly. "I was awake for a while after we ejected, Kim," he said. His voice was filled with despair. "I saw where it went down."

"Yeah, where?" Kim asked nervously, not quite sure she wanted to hear the answer.

Ron raised his arm and pointed to one of the countless snow-covered peaks surrounding them. "It spun into a small lake… in the valley… on the other side of that mountain."

Kim's hopes followed it in…

"Well, let's not worry about that now," she said as she sat down next to him and began to unfold the blanket over them both.

"It's so cold…" Ron muttered, somehow managing to shiver _and_ sweat at the same time.

"Come here," Kim commanded, pulling her partner up against her.

"_I don't wanna wrestle…_" Ron mumbled as the redhead laid him down in her lap and pulled the emergency blanket over their bodies, making sure the reflective silver was facing _out_ just in case.

She watched protectively as her best friend's trembling gradually subsided and his breathing became slow and rhythmic before allowing her own eyes to shut and sleep to envelop her as well.

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_To be continued..._


	3. They're looking in the wrong place

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_**Chapter Three –** They're looking for us… in the wrong place!  
_By: recon228

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General Grant hadn't even been at his desk for more than thirty seconds when his secretary paged him. The 52-year-old base commander leaned forward in his chair and let out a sigh before picking up the phone receiver.

As soon as the line was open, the young female voice of his secretary spoke-up through the speaker. "_General Grant?_"

"Yes, Karen?" he replied, his voice deep and raspy as a result of thirty-five years spent smoking close to one pack of cigarettes per day.

"_Sir,_ _y__ou have a call on line one; it's General Hughes._"

"Thank you," Grant replied.

General Hughes was Grant's counterpart over at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, as well as a close personal friend for many years. Punching the red flashing button on the phone, the General connected with his former academy roommate. "Good morning, Jack, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"_Pleasure?_" General Hughes snapped in a voice that held an uncanny resemblance to that of _Full Metal Jacket_'s R. Lee Ermey. "**_Pleasure_******_ Do you know how many strings I had to pull to get that old T-bird of yours onto the May decommission list? Do you remember that conversation, Steve?_"

Steve leaned back in his chair and let out his second aggravated sigh of the morning. It always amazed him how his old friend could make running the Air Force's Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center sound like a matter of national security. All General Hughes was was a glorified junkyard supervisor. He didn't have wacko super-villains trying to steal next-generation stealth prototypes.

"Why yes, Jack," Grant replied in a patronizing tone. "Yes I do–"

"_Then you remember I told you I wanted it wheels-down on my tarmac by 22:00 hours last night!_" the hotheaded general interrupted.

"Look, we had an incident here yesterday," Steve snapped, quickly tiring of his friend's 24/7 hostile attitude. "Some blue-skinned freak showed up and tried to steal our X-43 prototype! Fortunately Kim Possible managed to stop them from escaping before they used the thing for who knows what! So as a professional courtesy, I offered her and her partner a ride back home to Colorado. And since Lieutenant Steeves was the only one flying out, I told him to make a stopover on his way. So I _apologize_ if he was a little late but–"

"**_Late?_**_ Steve, he didn't show up at all!_"

The base commander bolted forward in his chair. "What are you talking about? I watched them depart shortly after 18:40 hours _yesterday_!"

"_Steve,_" Hughes replied in an ominously quiet tone. "_Your T-33 never got here._"

General Grant placed the phone against his shoulder and swore under his breath before placing it back against his ear. "Listen, Jack, I gotta call you back."

"_Yeah, good luck Steve…_"

Dropping the call, General Grant paged his secretary and placed the phone on speaker while he dug Lt. Steeves' flight plan out of his desk drawer.

"Karen?"

"_Yes, General?_" his secretary responded in a casual tone of voice.

"Karen, I've got a priority-one assignment for you here."

"_Go ahead, Sir,_" Karen replied.

Grant could hear her preparing a pen and pad of paper. "I want you to contact the Tri-city International Airport's Air Traffic Control Center in Middleton, Colorado and check if an Air Force Lockheed T-33 tail number…" he glanced down at the flight plan on his desk, "tail number 52-9232 landed there at any point in the last twelve hours. If it did, I want to know if it's still there. If it left, I want to know when. If it _didn't_ arrive, I want you to contact Nellis Air Force Base and check if that same aircraft requested a transition into their airspace, same time frame. I need all that info ASAP!"

"_You got it, Sir,_" Karen replied as she broke the transmission.

As his secretary made the required calls, General Grant examined Lt. Steeves' flight path, which showed him flying over the northern corner of Death Valley National Park before turning east into Arizona and Nevada. From what he could tell, it looked like the only place they could have gone down unnoticed would have to be in Death Valley.

After what seemed like hours, Karen finally paged him back. "_Sir?_" she announced in an ominously somber tone, "_neither Tri-city International _**_nor_**_ Nellis Approach have any record of Air Force 52-9232 entering their airspace._"

The General took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Thank you, Karen, could you come in here please?"

The General barely had a chance to hang up the phone before the petite middle-aged brunette woman came rushing into his office with an emergency contact roster tucked under her arm. If there was one thing he could always rely on, it was Karen's constant awareness of the situation around her.

As she saluted and sat down across the desk from him, he leaned forward and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Alright," he began, spinning the map around for her to see, "we've got one pilot and two teenaged civilians down, most likely somewhere in the northern end of Death Valley National Park. I want you to contact the Inyo County Sheriff's Department and the National Parks Service and have them send out every SAR (_Search and Rescue_) team within fifty miles. We also need to inform the local CAP (_Civil Air Patrol_) squadrons and get them in the air ASAP."

"Yes, Sir," Karen affirmed as she jotted more notes onto her legal pad.

Grant then scribbled a name and number onto the back of a business card and slid it across the table toward her. "I also want you to contact this man over at the Lemoore Naval Air Station. He's in charge of their Air Rescue and owes me a few favors. Tell him I'm cashing them in… _all_ of them."

"Yes, Sir. Is there anyone else we need to contact?"

The General leaned back in his chair and drew a deep breath in through his nose. "Yes… but I'll handle it. Just get to work on what I've given you."

"Yes, Sir!" The woman did an about-face and exited the room as quickly as she had entered it.

Alone again, General Grant picked up the phone's receiver and dialed information. When the operator answered he spoke in a slow and tired voice. "Yes in Middleton, Colorado. I need the number for the Middleton Police Department." He waited as the operator connected him.

The call rang through two times before it was picked up. "_Middleton Police Department,_" a male voice announced on the other end.

"Yes, this is General Steven Grant, United States Air Force; I'm Base Commander at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. We've had an aircraft go down somewhere near Death Valley and I need you to make a notification for the families of two civilians on board. Yes, we're sending SAR teams out now. No, we don't know what their status is at this point. We're not sure yet, but we think they went down last night sometime."

As the officer on the other end began to copy down the information Grant had given him, the General picked up the flight roster off of his desk and examined the personnel log.

"Their full names are Kimberly Ann Possible and Ronald Dean Stoppable… yes, _the_ Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable."

---

"Hon, have you seen Kimmie this morning?" Dr. Andrea Possible asked her husband as he walked into the kitchen to make breakfast.

"No, not since yesterday when she left on her mission," Dr. James Possible responded, glancing at his watch which read 6:02am. "Maybe she's still on her way home." He walked over to the sink and glanced out the window. "Or maybe she spent the night at Ronald's house."

It was kind of ironic, but as strict as Kim's father was in regards to his daughter's love life––or mandated lack there-of––Ron was one of the few people, male _or_ female, whose house he was comfortable allowing his _'Kimmie-cub_' to spend the night at. He saw the goofy blond teen as more of a stepson than a potential suitor.

Both parents exchanged apprehensive glances when the wall-mounted phone next to the sink began to ring.

Since she was closest to the phone, Andrea walked over and picked it up. "Possible Residence," she announced cheerfully. After a few seconds of silence, she heard someone softly crying on the other end. "Hello?"

"_Ann…_"

The surgeon's stomach suddenly tightened. It was Margaret Stoppable, Ron's mother. "Margaret… what's wrong?"

"_It's Ron… he… he's missing…_" the woman managed to choke out before breaking down into uncontrollable sobs.

Andrea opened her mouth to respond, but froze as she glanced out the kitchen window. She dropped the receiver into the sink and gasped as she watched a black-and-white Middleton police cruiser pull to a stop against the curb.

The last thing she saw before sinking to the ground was the sight of a uniformed police officer and a department-appointed chaplain walking up the path to her front door.

_

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To be continued..._


	4. We can't give up hope

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**Chapter Four – **We can't give up hope  
_By: recon228

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It was a little after sunrise the following morning when Kim woke up, or rather was _woken_ up by a distant thumping sound. She had been half-awake for a few minutes already––just long enough to become aware of the fact that Ron was awake next to her, digging through the contents of the survival kit––but the distant beating of rotor blades quickly snapped her to full attention.

"_Helicopter…_" she mumbled, sitting upright and scanning the horizon for the approaching rescue helicopter that was, no doubt, coming to pick them up.

Hearing his friend stir, Ron turned away from what he was doing and glanced over at Kim. He still looked a bit pale, but the weakness and delirium from the night before seemed to have passed during the night.

Kim turned her attention away from the looming mountain peaks and gave Ron an excited grin. "It's a helicopter, do you hear it?"

With the increasing echo of rotor blades bouncing off the surrounding mountains, it was hard not to hear it.

"Yeah, it's over there," the freckled-blond replied in a monotone voice, pointing off toward the south.

Sure enough, on the other side of the granite-strewn basin, Kim could just barely make out the form of a large olive-drab military helicopter cruising over the distant mountain ridge.

Kim was about to grab the rescue blanket and began waving it frantically when Ron spoke up. "Don't bother trying to signal them, Kim," he announced. His voice was ominously hollow, like that of a person who had given up hope. "I already tried that with the last two… and they were much closer." He turned to face his friend and Kim could clearly see the despair in his eyes.

Watching helplessly as their rescuers disappeared behind the mountains, Kim turned back to Ron. "There were others earlier?" she asked, as her despair began transforming into aggravation which, unfortunately, was quickly directed toward her partner.

"Yeah, about fifteen minutes ago two red-and-white Hueys flew by in formation a little north of that last one. They all seem to be heading in the same direction."

"And you just let them go by!" Kim's eyes were beginning to burn with anger.

"No, Kim!" Ron snapped as his temper quickly began loosing its fuse as well. "I _tried_ to signal them with _that_!" He gestured toward a small signal-mirror lying at his feet. "But they either didn't see it…" his voice dropped several octaves, "or they didn't care."

"Ron, don't talk like that," Kim said with a frustrated sigh. She couldn't believe he was pouting at a time like this. "Why would they not care?"

"Because they're not looking for us here," he stated calmly.

Ron's statement hit Kim like a punch in the stomach. "Why would you say that?" she asked, unable to figure out where he had come up with an idea like that.

"Remember the warning light that Lieutenant Steeves told us was for the ELT?" Ron asked.

Kim nodded, remembering the warning light that had indicated the device was off-line.

"You _do_ know what an ELT is, don't you?"

Kim shook her head. She hated to admit it, but she had no idea what an ELT was. After Steeves had reassured them it didn't affect the plane's flight she had dismissed it. Then when the explosion occurred…

"An ELT is an emergency beacon that transmits a plane's exact location when it crashes. It's the only accurate method search crews have to locate the crash site."

Kim's face paled slightly. "I'm sure there are other methods," she responded. It was more of a prayer than a statement.

"Yeah," replied Ron, pulling a small tin from the survival kit and examining it before grunting and tossing it back into the case. "They can follow the pilot's flight plan."

"What's a flight plan?"

Ron stepped away from the metal kit and turned to face his naive friend. "Every pilot, military _and_ civilian, who's going to be flying more than fifty miles, is required to construct and file a flight plan before they leave the airport. It maps out the course they're going to be flying, and if they go down and don't have a functioning ELT on board, the search crews use that path to coordinate their grid-search.

"Normally that wouldn't be a problem… but we weren't following our flight plan when we crashed," he added quietly.

"How do you–" Kim began to question, but was quickly interrupted as Ron continued speaking. His tone was becoming gradually harsher the longer he spoke.

"Before we left I took a look at the plan," the blond explained, no longer making eye contact with his friend as he spoke, instead focusing on the barren granite basin where they currently resided. "It had us flying north through Death Valley National Park before turning northeast and crossing Nevada." He turned his gaze back to Kim. "I don't know if you've noticed," he added, waving his arm in the air absently, "but this is_ not_ the desert…"

"Well maybe–"

"**_Don't you get it Kim?_**" yelled Ron. "**_They're not gonna find us here! They're looking for us in the desert, not in the mountains!_**"

His words shot into Kim like venom-tipped arrows and the teen felt as if her chest was tightening. Ron had _never_ yelled at her––or _anyone_––like this before!

With another dejected sigh, he reached down and palmed one of the circular tins from the survival kit; tossing it at the redhead as he continued to speak. Kim caught the tin and looked down at its label. The words _Meal, Combat Individual_ (_C-ration) _were printed across the top and side of the antique can.

"I wouldn't expect to wait it out here either," he said as his voice started returning to its earlier depressing tone. "Those things expired in 1978, so they're completely useless."

Kim tried to get a word in edgewise, but Ron was on the verge of a full-blown rant. Tossing two more expired C-Rations on the ground, the teen reached into the kit and pulled out what appeared to be a black plastic rifle stock.

"Here's another useful bit of equipment." He held the object up for Kim to see. "They gave us a rifle stock, but no _rifle_! I guess that pretty much rules out our options of hunting for food… not that either of us would know how to skin an animal anyway." He tossed the stock on the ground next to the expired food and sat back down against the rotting log.

Kim watched silently as her normally up-beat partner leaned his head back and closed his eyes, letting a prolonged sigh escape his lungs. She knew she had to say something to get him out of his funk and back into the game. It wasn't Ron's fault he was acting like this; it was just an emotional overload and, quite frankly, she was surprised she was remaining so calm herself. She also knew that, whether his findings were true or not, Team Possible stood no chance of survival unless both members were operating at the top of their game. She had to do or say something…

…she just didn't know what.

"H-hey Ron?" Kim asked nervously after almost a minute of silence.

"Hmm…" the teen grunted, refusing to look at her or even open his eyes.

"Where did you learn all that stuff about ELTs and aircraft flight plans?"

"I read about it in a book," Ron announced dismissively.

'_This is so lame,_' she told herself, but it was all she could think of at the moment. "You mean _you_, Ron Stoppable, actually _read _a book?" she asked in the most innocently teasing voice she could manage.

The redhead prayed that her pathetic joke would somehow take hold on her partner and bring his '_Ron-ness_' back into the hollow shell sitting before her.

Ron opened his eyes and slowly turned his head toward Kim with a look of slight shock and confusion plastered on his face.

Kim was about to apologize for her rude and uncalled-for ribbing when she saw a familiar grin began to spread across the blonde's freckled face. Slowly the grin turned into a full smile as the boy broke out into uncontrollable laughter.

Seeing the '_old_' Ron returning, Kim broke into laughter as well; not from the joke, but from the relief of reuniting Team Possible back to its former functioning self.

---

Daniel '_Danny_' Gordon had been a member of the National Parks Service for almost ten years. Of those ten years in the NPS, six of them had been working as a Park Ranger and of _those_ six years, the past four had been spent stationed in the Kings Canyon National Park near Fresno, California.

He still loved his job and couldn't see himself doing anything else in life, however in the past few years, Danny had been finding himself dealing with more and more '_city_' problems than he wanted to.

Though he was considered by law to be a federal peace officer, thus giving him the authority to carry a firearm and effect arrests, he had never really considered himself a '_cop_' like some of the guys he worked with. Danny chose his job because he wanted to help people and be in an outdoor environment, not bust criminals.

As a native of Mendocino County in Northern California, he had grown up among sprawling redwood forests and, as a result, found himself '_at home_' in the mountainous backcountry. His love for the job, however, had begun to wane in recent months due to the influx of city crime that was staining his beloved park. Previous crimes that consisted of petty thefts, auto burglaries, and the occasional aggravated tourist were quickly turning much more deadly.

Around the turn of the millennium, the vast unoccupied backcountry and under-staffed personnel that made up America's National Parks had begun to attract many big-time drug dealers who found the forests and isolated parking areas ideal for large acre narcotics harvests and mobile meth labs. There had been more Park Rangers murdered since 1999 than in the over one hundred year NPS history preceding it. In fact, according to a recent Justice Department study he had read, Federal Park Rangers were fifteen percent more likely to be killed or injured on the job than agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Still, despite the added risks, Danny wouldn't give it up for the world.

One of the things that he loved most about the job was being given the privilege of manning the isolated Simpson Meadow Ranger Station for two weeks at the beginning of every spring while the seasonal backpackers began to arrive.

That morning he had just parked his truck and was preparing his gear for the thirty-five mile hike through Granite Pass to Simpson Meadows when he encountered a pair of returning backpackers.

With the summer season quickly unfolding, it was once again becoming common to find adventurous backpackers venturing into the half-frozen backcountry for up to a week at a time before turning around. It was because of this that Danny didn't pay much attention to the couple and focused instead on his gear.

He checked that he had an appropriate amount of food for the trip there––The cabin was pre-stocked with enough food for two people to live off of for a month––as well as plenty of clothes, maps, and books to pass the down-time. Hefting the pack onto his back, Danny took one last look into his Jeep and frowned as his eyes fell upon the cold black form of the patrol rifle mounted between the seats of his 4x4 patrol car.

In accordance with a recent memo passed down from Washington DC, all Park Rangers were supposed to carry their AR-15 assault rifles with them when they ventured into the backcountry; just as an added precaution should they encounter any drug growers. Danny, however, had despised the guns ever since the NPS purchased them from the US Army in the mid-90's and felt it made him look too menacing to hikers he encountered. People tended not to stop and chat when the park ranger had a machine gun slung over his shoulder.

'_Besides,_' he told himself, '_there are more than enough guns at Simpson Meadows._' It wasn't like he would need them anyway, but they were still there in case any of the higher-ups decided to drop by and conduct a spot check. Plus, he had his service-issue Smith and Wesson .40 caliber pistol if anything actually happened along the way.

"Excuse me, officer?"

Danny was just getting ready to lock-up his Jeep when a voice behind him attracted his attention. He turned to find the couple from before had walked over to where he was currently securing his vehicle. They were both in their mid-thirties and had wire-frame backpacks strapped to them. It was the man who had spoken.

"Hi there," Danny greeted the couple happily. "How can I help you today?"

The man looked reluctantly at the woman beside him who, seeing the man's hesitant look, elbowed him softly in the ribs. With a sigh, he turned back toward the ranger. "Look this is probably nothing," he said apologetically, "but my wife thinks she may have heard something like a plane having engine trouble yesterday evening near Granite Basin–"

"It sounded like a high pitched jet engine," his wife interrupted. She seemed much more convinced of her story than her husband. "I heard it from inside our tent, and then suddenly, it just stopped."

"It just stopped?" repeated Danny, doing his best to humor the woman. He knew from experience that passing aircraft tended to sound different at high altitude than they did at a lower elevation. As a result, they were often the subjects of false crash reports by novice hikers.

"Yeah," the woman nodded. "It didn't fade away like they normally do. It was just there one second, and gone the next." She snapped her fingers to illustrate the speed she was referring to.

"Did you hear an explosion, or see any smoke?" asked Danny.

"No," the man answered, "she claims she saw something '_small and white_' in the sky a few minutes after the sound stopped, but I didn't see anything."

That comment earned him a dirty look from his wife.

"Well, thanks for the information," Danny said as he tightened the straps on his own pack. "I'm going to be heading past Granite Basin on my way to Simpson Meadows so I'll be sure to check it out for you."

"Thank you so much," the woman paused to read the brass nametag on Danny's uniform shirt, "Officer Gordon." She then gave her husband a triumphant glare, as if the ranger's acknowledgement was somehow a major victory for her.

"Don't mention it," replied Danny.

As the couple continued on their way, Danny took one last look around before starting up the trail. Approaching the trailhead, his attention was drawn to two red-and-white rescue helicopters that were visible in the distance. Their pilots were keeping the crafts in close formation as they passed over Granite Pass on their way to who knows where.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	5. The search continues

* * *

**Chapter Five –** The search continues  
_By: recon228

* * *

_

By two o'clock, the activity in and around the Possible residence had reached its crescendo. In the eight hours that had passed since the first police officer and chaplain had arrived on scene, the normally-quiet house had become host to a score of government officials representing every letter of the alphabet. There were representatives from the FAA (_Federal Aviation Administration_), the NTSB (_National Transportation Safety Board_), the CAP, the US Air Force, the NPS, and local law enforcement occupying every room in the lower level of the house. Meanwhile, almost every news media organization in the state was camped-out on the street in front of the home, waiting for a chance to interview the family members of what was quickly becoming the nation's top story.

The Stoppable Family was there, Margaret and John, as well as Rufus, who had missed out on the mission due to a routine check-up at the local veterinarian.

Josh and Tara, Kim and Ron's boyfriend and girlfriend, were in attendance as well.

Having heard the news during lunch, Josh had alerted the blonde cheerleader and both teens quickly rushed over to provide comfort and support for the families, as well as each other.

Being the levelheaded quiet type that he was, Josh sat silently on the arm of the couch next to the Stoppables, watching the search's progress on _Headline News_. At last report, SAR teams had located two unmarked crash sites within Death Valley; however neither of them had crashed recently.

One of the wrecks located within the park boundaries was a civilian single-engine Mooney Mk. I lost in 1997. The other wreck was an old Army Air Force B-25 bomber that was thought to have gone down in the Pacific during World War II.

So far Josh's girlfriend, Tara's boyfriend, and the Possible/Stoppable's eldest/only children were still missing.

Being the emotionally weakest person present, Tara had spent the entire time since receiving the news latched onto the closest arm she could find for comfort; all the while crying, sniffling, and telling anyone who would listen how Ron could handle himself and was going to be ok. On the ride over it had been Josh's arm she had clung to, upon arriving at the Possible Residence it was Andrea Possible who became the '_comfort blanket_' for the blonde. Currently, the target of her emotional insecurity was an unfortunate young NTSB representative who, having seated himself next to the girl for a moment of rest, was now acting as grief counselor for the sniffling teen.

Though she and Ron had only been dating for about three months, it was by no means a new relationship. Tara had first developed feelings for the goofy blond during the Wannaweep incident two years earlier, but hadn't mustered up the courage to ask him out until recently. Since then, their relationship, as well as Kim and Josh's, had developed far beyond what anyone would have expected. That was mainly thanks to her and Josh's ability to trust and honor Team Possible's relationship.

While most boyfriends and girlfriends would have attempted to separate the two teens for fear of a romantic bond developing, Josh and Tara had not. They had, instead, allowed Kim and Ron to continue their work and personal relationship unhindered with the trust that they were good friends to one another, as well and loyal boyfriends and girlfriends to their respective partners.

Everyone who saw them together outside of missions thought Kim and Ron loved each other…

…and that was true.

But Josh and Tara understood that Team Possible's relationship transcended that of physical love and romance. Kim and Ron were best friends. They loved each other and either one of them would willingly give his or her life in order to protect the other from harm.

They were, however, not _in love _with each other. They had never harbored any sexual feelings about one another, even during the height of puberty. They saw each other more like close siblings; there was love and friendship between them, but not romance.

Josh and Tara were, of course, aware of that fact.

It was perhaps due to the tremendous volume of government officials coming and going that nobody seemed to notice the newest addition to the crowded room.

The man standing in the entryway to the living room was in his mid-to-late-twenties and was dressed in a typical dark business suit. He was approximately 5'11" and had a strong, yet not overly muscular build. With his neatly combed brown hair styled in a conservative manner, he could have easily been mistaken for an investment banker or used-car salesman at first glance.

As the man stood surveying the room, three other similarly dressed individuals appeared behind him. Finally, spotting the two individuals they were looking for, he and his associates casually approached the adult Possibles, who were seated with their two remaining children at the dining room table discussing the search progress with Dr. Director, the head of Global Justice.

Spotting the men walking her way, Dr. Director moved to intercept them. "Excuse me," she spoke up, trying to stop the brown-haired man. Before she could take any action, however, she was instantaneously stopped by hostile glares from his three associates.

Approaching the startled couple, the man stopped and looked down at them. "Are you Dr.'s James and Andrea Possible?" Both parents nodded and, in one well-practiced motion, he withdrew a leather billfold from his coat pocket and flipped it open to display a well polished badge mounted inside. "I'm Special Agent Kryker, FBI," he announced casually.

His introduction was returned in the form of two shocked and confused stares.

Noticing that he had managed to attract the attention of nearly everyone in the room, Agent Kryker decided to skip right to the point. "I'm sorry to have to do this to you right now," he said, reaching into his coat and withdrawing a folded piece of yellow-tinted triplicate paper, "but we have a federal warrant to search the room of your daughter, Kimberly Ann Possible, as well as any areas of this residence which she has legal access and standing over. We also have authorization from the United States Attorney's Office to remove any and all items that we deem necessary to further our investigation into this incident."

With the exception of the television, nothing and no one in the room made a sound. After a few seconds Andrea broke down and began to sob into her husband's shoulder while James stared up at the agent with a look of rage.

Without a shred of emotion, the agent held out his hand and presented the horrified parents with the copy of the warrant.

"What does _this_ have to do with my daughter and her friend's plane going down?" James asked, dumbfounded, as he snatched the warrant from the man's hand.

Agent Kryker just shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I can't disclose that information right now." He then sidestepped and gestured toward the three men standing behind him. "What I need from one of you is to show Agent Marks, Agent Olmo, and Agent Johansson here where your daughter's room is so we can get this over with and allow everyone to concentrate on getting her back safe and sound."

James wanted to do something; yell, argue, threaten to contact a lawyer… but the 42-year-old rocket scientist knew that you really couldn't argue with a federal warrant. After a few more seconds of silence he stood slowly and headed toward the stairs that lead to Kim's room.

As he passed the waiting agents he growled, "This way gentleman," followed by a string of barely audible obscenities.

Turning his attention back to the shell-shocked occupants of the room, Agent Kryker took a moment to straighten his tie before withdrawing a second warrant from his pocket and examining the name printed on it.

In a voice eerily devoid of emotion, he asked, "Are the parents or legal guardians of Ronald Dean Stoppable here by any chance?"

The sudden outburst of sobbing to his right quickly zeroed him in on his target.

---

Now that the team was up and running again, Kim decided that they had to calmly and rationally inventory their current supplies. As their stress-relieving laughter died down, she walked over and sat on a large granite rock next to Ron and the survival kit.

"Okay, depression and despair aside, what _do_ we have in here?" she asked, looking to her friend.

Ron let out a brief sigh and, for a moment, Kim was afraid that he had reverted back into hopelessness. But when he began to speak, she could clearly detect a hint of the usual '_Ron-ness_' in his voice.

"Well, food aside, we do have _some_ useful stuff," he noted as he reached into the kit and began removing items, identifying them as he placed them on the granite boulder between himself and Kim. "We've got a basic first-aid kit, a container of windproof matches, an empty canteen, some primitive fishing gear," he pulled out a coil of what looked like small, tightly wound barbed wire, "I think this is some kind of wire saw, and that's it… oh wait!" He reached behind the boulder and picked up the rifle stock he had discarded earlier. "We have this thing too, but I still don't get what purpose it serves."

"Beats me," Kim replied with a shrug.

Ron examined the stock for a few more seconds before he tossed it to the ground between them. With a hollow '_thud_' the device hit the granite surface and the end-cap popped open, dumping a small-caliber rifle receiver, a barrel, an ammunition magazine, and a box of twenty-five .22-caliber bullets at the teens' feet.

"Uh…" Ron glanced from the disassembled rifle to Kim and blushed. "I knew those were in there."

"Sure you did," Kim retorted with a smirk.

With a nervous chuckle, Ron picked up the components and began working to reassemble the survival rifle into functioning order.

"What are you doing?" Kim asked with a frown.

"I'm trying to put this thing back together so we can actually use it," answered Ron. He looked up at Kim and gave her an innocent '_no duh_' expression.

"Ron, just don't mess with it," Kim scolded. "The last thing we need is for you to accidentally fire it off and hit yourself… or _me_."

"I know what I'm doing, Kim," he replied defensively. "I _have_ used a gun before y'know."

"**_What?_**" Kim's jaw dropped. That was news to her; _she_ had never used, or even held a gun before, so she had no idea when Ron had used one. "You've fired a _gun_ before?"

Ron continued working to assemble the rifle and nodded. "Yeah, with graduation approaching the 'rents have been on my case about what I want to do with '_the rest of my life_', as they put it. Because I help you with the freak-fighting so often, my dad got the idea to have me spend a day with my cousin, Reuben, in order to see what his job is like."

Kim gave him a blank stare.

"He's a Sergeant with the Denver Police Department, remember?"

"Oh, right, isn't he the one who just got married?" Kim asked. She remembered meeting the man after the reception, but she had never learned his profession.

"Yup, two weeks before the wedding I did a ride-along with him during one of his shifts, then after work he took me to their shooting range and taught me some of the basics. I got to fire a pistol, a shotgun, and an M16!"

Having screwed the barrel in, Ron seated the receiver into the stock and held the assembled rifle up for Kim to see.

"So why didn't I know about this?" asked Kim. She was rather unsettled; not about the shooting, but about Ron not telling her. They had always told each other _everything_!

Ron popped open the box of .22 ammo and looked up at Kim with a sly grin. "This was right around the time you and Josh began going steady."

"Oh… right…" Kim replied with slight blush.

"Yeah…" Ron chuckled.

Kim's head had been so high in the clouds that week Ron could have told her he was moving to _Norway_ and she wouldn't have noticed. It was an event he, Tara, and Monique had handled well, but nevertheless still teased her about.

"So," she pointed at the small rifle in his hands, "you promise you know how to handle that?"

Ron smiled and held up his right hand in a Boy Scout-type salute. "I promise."

"Alright," Kim replied. She really didn't have reason to doubt him, his klutzy tendencies _had_ seemed to be waning as of recently.

Standing up, Kim took a moment to look around and survey their surroundings. They were currently resting on the upper slope of a large granite basin. Down the valley, about a quarter-mile away to the northeast, she could see a small lake and a stream that ran downhill and out of the valley. Detecting a presence behind her, she turned and found that Ron had left the gun lying on his rock and joined her in surveying their surroundings.

"I don't see any wildlife," he commented.

"We may have to get a bit lower in elevation before we find anything." She gestured toward the lower end of the basin. "I'm thinking if we still don't see any sign of rescuers by tomorrow morning, we start following that stream downhill until we find help."

Ron looked down toward the small lake at the bottom of the basin and nodded. "Sounds like as good a plan as any, but we may want to relocate camp down to the lake this afternoon. That way we'll have an adequate supply of water."

"Good idea, maybe we can use that fishing gear and some of the expired rations to try and catch some fish, if there are any." Kim knew it was a long shot, but worth a try at least.

Ron nodded, and then looked around nervously, suddenly becoming aware of a building pressure on his bladder. "Cool, let me just, uh… take care of some business, and then we can pack this stuff up and head down." he said before turning and heading toward the privacy of some large rocks.

"Don't forget to check wind-direction!" Kim yelled after him.

"That was _one_ time and I was in a hurry!" Ron replied with a groan.

Kim just shook her head and laughed as her friend disappeared behind the cluster of rocks.

---

About a half-hour into his hike up the Copper Creek Trail, Danny came across one of the park's frequent-fliers, Michael Jacobson.

Mike, or '_Mountain Mike_' as the locals knew him, was a long-time packer who spent the spring and summer months leading mule-trains into the backcountry to re-stock the numerous park-operated log cabins that dotted the isolated landscape. At first glance one would think the man was still living in the nineteenth century. With his worn overalls, plaid button-down shirt, and grizzled beard, he had the look of a man pulled straight out of the California Gold Rush of 1848.

"**_Danny!_**" Mike bellowed in a deep, yet warm voice. The older man pulled his mule to a stop and walked up to the younger ranger and extended his hand. "Are you on your way to Simpson Meadows?"

"I sure am, Mike," Danny replied, dropping his pack and shaking the man's leathered hand. "I'm gonna have food when I get there, right?"

"Son, have I ever let you down before? I just left there yesterday morning. Most of the food was still good, so all I did was add to it. That means you've got about double the usual amount of food when you get there."

Danny grinned and patted his stomach. "Excellent, double portions!"

"Now don't eat _too_ much while you're there," Mike said with a laugh. "Wouldn't want to get fat and not be able to make the hike out."

"Well…" Danny pretended to think it over for a moment, "oh, alright, but only 'cause _you_ say so. Anyway, I gotta get going if I'm going to make it through the pass today, but I'll see you later, Mike."

Danny hefted his pack back onto his shoulders and turned to leave. He stopped, however, when he remembered his conversation with the backpackers back at the trailhead. It was probably nothing, but just to be sure…

"Hey, Mike?" he called out, turning to face the packer, who was preparing his mule-train to resume its trek.

"Yeah?" the grizzled man replied.

"Where'd you stay last night?"

Mike pulled out a worn and weathered topographic map and studied it for a few moments. " Lake of the Fallen Moon, why?"

Lake of the Fallen Moon was just north of Granite Pass, on the way to Simpson Meadows.

"You didn't hear a plane making strange noises by any chance did you?"

The man's eyes widened slightly. "You know, I did actually… yeah, a little before seven thirty last night. It was high-pitched, like a fighter jet, and then it just stopped all of a sudden. I didn't hear a crash or anything though."

"Where did the noise stop?" Danny asked, suddenly worried that the couple's story had more merit to it than he had originally thought.

"I'm not sure exactly." Mike thought it over for a moment. "It was definitely south of Fallen Moon… uh, maybe around Dusy Basin? That'd be my best guess."

Danny nodded and glanced at his watch. "Do me a favor, Mike, when you get back to Cedar Grove Village tell em–"

The park ranger was cut off mid-sentence as a massive red object buzzed the treetops overhead. Its twin turbine engines and rotor blades literally shook the pine needles from the surrounding trees as Danny dove to the ground, while Mike tugged furiously on the reigns of his mule, which was braying and kicking out of fear.

As soon as it had appeared, the helicopter was gone; leaving both men and the mule-train in stunned silence.

"**_Damn it, Herb!_**" Danny growled as he stood up and dusted himself off. "**_You crazy bastard!_**"

"You know that gung-ho flyboy?" Mike asked, rubbing his mule's head reassuringly.

"Yeah, that was Herbert Whittier," Danny replied as he brushed the dust off of his dark green uniform pants and readjusted his leather gun-belt.

Herbert Whittier was a local helicopter pilot who made a living giving aerial tours of the park to tourists who were too lazy to hike the trails themselves. Herbert, or Herb as he preferred to be called, was also known for his often-reckless piloting skills and somewhat shady business practices.

"Herb…" Mike glanced off in the direction the chopper had disappeared and rubbed his beard. "Isn't he the one you guys think shuttles growers out into the backcountry?"

"Yeah, that's him." The ranger nodded.

Though it had never been proven, it was believed by most of the park employees that Herb was the main source of transportation for poachers and drug harvesters into- and out-of the park. On several occasions Danny had heard eyewitness accounts from backpackers of Whittier's red Aerospatiale landing within the park boundaries. This was, of course, in violation of numerous FAA and NPS regulations. So far, however, they had been unable to catch him in the act.

"You think he's giving a tour… or acting as an air-taxi?" asked Mike.

Danny let out a long sigh and shook his head. "As long as I don't have to deal with it, I don't really care."

---

"Hey Kim, come here, quick!" Ron called out from behind the rocks.

"Why, what's wrong?" Kim shouted back. Given the fact that he had been using the bathroom last she heard, she was a bit reluctant to go rushing to her friend's side.

"Just_ come here_!" the blond yelled back. "I found something interesting…"

* * *

_To be continued..._


	6. Beans, contempt, and the IQAF

* * *

**Chapter Six –** Beans, contempt, and the IQAF  
_By: recon228

* * *

_

"It's…" Kim frowned and scratched the side of her head as she looked down at the object Ron had discovered. "…what is it?"

The item in question was resting between them in a small crevice formed by two granite boulders. It was a container of some sort; about half the size of the survival kit they had discovered earlier, and made of what looked like high-impact black plastic. The general design reminded her of the foam-lined cases people used to carry valuables, such as electronics, camera equipment… and _guns_. Given their current situation, Kim felt, none of the above would have done them much good.

Next to her, Ron appeared equally stumped. "You think it came from the plane?" he asked, looking around at their desolate surroundings.

"No," Kim replied, shaking her head. The survival kit they had found the night before was about as antiquated as the plane it had come out of. From what she could see of the plastic case before them, it looked like it was brand new. "It looks too new to have come from the plane."

"How long do you think it's been here?"

"Not long," Kim noted. "Maybe a month or two at most."

The idea that other people had been there recently _should_ have had Kim jumping for joy, but for some reason, it gave her an uneasy feeling deep inside her gut.

Ron, apparently, felt the same way. "So that means someone else has been here." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously and looked from Kim, down to the case. "That's good… _right_?"

Kim followed Ron's gaze and shrugged. "Yeah, of course it's good. It means we may be closer to civilization than we thought."

After a few silent moments, Ron glanced back up at Kim. "Well," he urged, "are we gonna see what's inside? I kinda doubt it's anything dangerous."

Kim knelt down and reached into the crevice to retrieve the case, but recoiled at the last moment. She glanced back at her friend and gave him a suspicious glare. "Ron, what _exactly_ were you doing when you found this? You didn't… y'know… on _this_, did you?"

Ron cocked his head and gave her a confused look before he realized what she was implying and his face turned a bright shade of crimson. "Oh,_ no-no-no!_" he assured her. "I was actually on my way back from… _that_. I just looked down, and there it was."

She allowed her suspicious gaze to linger for a few more seconds before she reached in and pulled the case out, placing it on another rock between them.

"Well?" Ron asked after several seconds of inaction from Kim. "You gonna open it, or am I?"

Kim brought her apprehensive gaze up from the small black case and shrugged nervously. "I don't know. I mean, what if it's a _bomb_ or something?"

Ron let out a sigh and stepped in front of the case. "I guess I just got promoted from '_distraction_' to '_bomb-squad_', huh?"

Kim watched anxiously as Ron undid the latches and cracked the case open. After a few seconds of silence, he turned his face to meet Kim's; his expression was one of utter confusion.

"What is it?" Kim asked nervously.

Ron turned around and held the case up for Kim to see. Inside the foam interior of the container was a bag of what appeared to be…

"It's full of coffee beans."

---

Back in the living room of the Possible residence, the tension had nearly reached its breaking point. Nobody said a word. In fact, only the occasional muted ring of a government cell phone and the continuing drone of the living room television broke the dead silence that had enveloped the house.

It had been a little under forty-five minutes since the FBI had muscled their way upstairs to search Kim's room. Since then, the families had only seen the men on a few occasions; usually when one of Agent Kryker's lackeys would cross the entryway with an arm-full of Kim's personal belongings.

"Why do they need to take her monitor?" Andrea moaned as one of the agents carried her daughter's computer monitor out the door to his waiting car. "What information could they possibly obtain from that?"

"Honey, please," James warned, placing an arm around his wife and pulling her closer. "They have a warrant. They can pretty much take what they want."

"B-but why?" she sobbed. "Why are they treating her like a _criminal_?"

The question was directed not at her husband, but at Dr. Director, who had been standing quietly next to them for some time.

"I don't know," the head of Global Justice replied quietly, "but I intend to find out."

Just like the fist time Agent Kryker had entered the living room, nobody seemed to notice him until he cleared his throat. Everyone turned toward the entryway, where the man was standing by the stairs leading to Kim's room with yet another form in his hand.

Smoothing out his tie and buttoning his coat, Agent Kryker walked over toward the grieving parents and held out the paper for James to retrieve. "We're done here… for now," he informed them in a flat tone. "This is a seized property receipt; everything we took from your daughter's room has been listed here. You can call that number circled on the top in a week or two to see about getting it all back."

Once James had snatched the form from his hand, the agent turned to face the Stoppables, who already knew what was coming.

"We're going to process your son's room now," he informed them coldly. "Will we be able to get in, or do you need to unlock the house for us?"

"I don't think you'll have a problem getting in," John Stoppable growled. "It's up the stairs and to the right. Think you can remember that, _Agent_?"

"I was considering writing it down," the fed replied sarcastically. "But I think I'll go ahead and just remember it."

John muttered a barely audible string of obscenities in response, which Agent Kryker casually ignored. He turned to leave the room, but Dr. Director quickly blocked his path.

"Excuse me," she asked in a quiet, yet hostile tone, "but just what the hell do you think you're doing here, _Adam_?"

"I'm conducting an investigation, _Betty_," Adam replied, regarding the woman in front of him with contempt and irritation. "Now if you'll excuse me," he began to step around the woman, "I have a job to–"

"Now you listen here," Dr. Director snapped, pushing the FBI agent back a step and moving to get into his face.

Before she could step forward, however, Adam had regained the ground between them and shoved his finger in front of her un-patched eye.

"_No **you** listen, Director!_" the man hissed. The speed of his attack caught the woman off-guard and sent her stumbling back against the wall. "You and your '_organization_' have been the red-headed step-child of this government ever since you were founded back in 1999," Adam growled as he continued to close the distance between them. When he could no longer push her back any further, he leaned forward until he was within inches of the woman's face.

"You were given an unbelievable opportunity, despite your impaired vision and shady family ties, to head up the Justice Department's new Global Justice network and _you **blew it!** _Your one job… **_one job_**… was to obtain intelligence data on foreign and domestic terror plots against the US and its assets overseas.

"The Attorney General and Defense Department gave you a nearly-unlimited budget and some of DARPA's most advanced technology to go about safe-guarding this country, and what do you do? You train a teenage Langley drop-out to speak Latin and praise him as your top agent, and you conduct a three-month in-depth study of the benefits of _naked mole rats_ in combat situations!

"Meanwhile, while all of Uncle Sam's money is being wasted on _that_ useless crap, the people you're _supposed_ to be watching out for manage to obtain flight lessons in Florida, and fly jumbo jets into our own _god damn_ **_buildings!_**"

As everyone in the room looked on in stunned silence, Adam straightened up and took a few steps back so that they could all hear what he had to say next.

"You, _and_ Global Justice, are a disgrace to this nation; a nation which I take immeasurable pride in. Now if you want to stay here and play grief counselor, that's fine. But don't even _think_ of getting yourself involved in this case or so help me God, I'll see to it that you're black-balled by so many organizations, you'll end up working as a meter-maid in _Hicksville_ by week's end." He once again stepped forward and got right up into the stunned woman's face. "Are we understood?"

Dr. Director, despite being almost twice as old as the man standing in front of her, cowered against the wall. Her facial expression was teetering between fear and rage.

"Are… _we_… **_understood_**" Adam repeated, this time adding force and volume to each word.

"_Y-yes…_" Dr. Director finally managed to force out.

Adam leaned back and nodded. "Good," he said, turning and heading for the door. When he reached the hallway, he turned and gave her a conceited smile. "Oh yeah; say '_hi_' to your brother for me, will you?" Before the Global Justice director could respond, Agent Kryker exited the house and left the occupants in a stunned silence.

Once outside, he walked across the front lawn to where his associates were waiting next to two black government sedans. Agents Marks and Olmo both wore sadistic grins on their faces as they watched their boss approach them.

"Mr. Humanitarian, eh, Adam?" Agent Marks commented from his position leaning against the open door of the lead sedan.

"Yeah," Agent Olmo chuckled, "you should have kept going, man. Maybe you could have made her cry like last time."

Agent Kryker donned a pair of sunglasses and shot his colleagues an annoyed glance. "Yeah-yeah, shut up and get to work processing that shit," he ordered, pointing to the half-dozen boxes of personal property taken from Kim's room.

"What about Stoppable's room?" queried Marks.

"Don't bother," Kryker replied dismissively. "He's just the sidekick; he's useless. Find the info we need and give me a call if anything new develops."

"You got it," said Agent Olmo.

As the first two agents headed toward the lead sedan, Adam turned to Agent Johansson, who was still standing beside the second sedan.

"You, come with me."

"Where are we going?" the third agent asked timidly.

"According to the Air Force, the last person Team Possible fought was a mad scientist by the alias of '_Dr. Drakken_'. I figure we should go have a talk with him and see what he knows."

Agents Marks let out a muted chuckle as he got into his car and slammed the door shut.

"Uh, would that be an '_investigative_' talk, sir, or the kind that makes the US Constitution cry?" Johansson asked.

Walking around the front of the car and opening the driver's door, Adam grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "We'll play it by ear…"

---

"Coffee beans?" asked Kim, staring at her friend as if he had lost his mind.

Ron looked back down at the contents of the case and nodded. "That's what they look like, see?" He brought the case over and allowed her to examine the contents up close.

Sure enough, inside the foam-lined interior of the case was a large plastic bag filled with several hundred small beans. They didn't look like coffee beans, however; their size and shape was different. Whatever was inside of the case more closely resembled hardened kernels of corn with a multicolor spotted hue ranging from black, to light brown and tan.

"Those aren't coffee beans," Kim noted, leaning closer to examine the bag.

"How do you know?" Ron asked doubtfully.

"Because coffee beans are bigger," explained Kim, "and they have a waxier luster."

Ron looked down at the mystery beans and then back up at Kim. "Right, luster… that's one of those school words I'm supposed to know, isn't it?"

Kim sighed and rolled her eyes. "_Luster_, refers to its appearance." She gestured toward the bag of beans in Ron's hands. "See how those are shiny, almost like glass?"

"Uh-huh."

"Coffee beans are dull and look like they're made of wax. They're also an entirely different shape."

"So what are these?" asked Ron, taking another look at the opened case in his hands.

"I don't know," Kim admitted hesitantly, "but we may as well take them with us. Who knows, maybe they're edible." She took the case from Ron's arms and closed it gently before turning and walking back toward their makeshift camp.

"Mystery beans?" Ron shrugged and followed after her. "Eh, I guess it still beats Cafeteria Lady's cooking."

Kim sighed and tossed the case back to him. "Let's just pack-up and head down to the lake before it gets too late, okay? Maybe we can take a shot at fishing when we get there."

"_Take a shot at fishing_…" Ron repeated as a wicked grin formed across his face.

"What?"

"Think about it, KP. Who needs fishing gear and bait when you've got a rifle?" Ron announced proudly.

Kim gave him a disgusted look and shook her head.

"What? Well, sure it may get a bit messy, but that's why you only shoot the big ones and–"

"Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"You start acting like Charlton Heston on me, and I'm revoking your rifle privileges. Get it?"

Ron gulped nervously and nodded. "Got it."

"Good."

---

"Why are we not flying low?"

Herbert Whittier turned his head slightly and keyed the inter-aircraft radio button on his control stick. "What's that, chief?" he asked, doing his best to make eye contact with the man sitting next to him, while not taking his eyes completely off the instrument panel of his helicopter.

"I said, '_why are we not flying low_'?" the man seated next to him repeated. He was staring straight ahead and made no attempt to look over at the pilot. Any specific facial expression he may have been making was hidden behind a neatly trimmed beard and oversized pair of aviator sunglasses, which also helped to give him an unnervingly calm expression.

Behind him in the rear of the helicopter, his two associates––whom Herb had yet to learn the names of––sat quietly, conversing with each other in what, to the middle-aged pilot, sounded like some form of Arabic.

"Well," explained Herb, "that peak up ahead there is Granite Pass. That's where we're going. I'm gonna bring us up to ceiling altitude so we can just glide right on in." He gestured to the area where the large valley beneath them rose steadily to form the peak of Granite Pass; the highest point in the Western area of the park. "If we stay low to the ground it'll take longer to get there, and the turbulence will be a bit–"

"I don't care!" the man snapped impatiently. "I want you to fly within one-hundred-and-fifty feet of the ground at all times. That was part of the agreement. So if you want your money, get your ass down there!" He turned toward the surprised pilot and pointed toward the ground beneath them.

Herb was not the type of guy who took to being ordered around lightly. Even by his paying customers. But since these three men were offering him what amounted to more than half of his son's college tuition for a one-way trip, he decided to let it drop.

It _was_ rather unusual, however, for a customer to request a specific altitude, especially one so low to the ground. It wasn't that Herb was worried about a collision, he just wasn't used to someone giving such a reckless order without batting an eye.

With in inward sigh, the forty-six-year-old bush pilot brought his eyes back to the front of the cabin. "You're the boss, Mr. O'Day," he replied casually.

Adopting a mischievous grin, Herb eased forward on the control stick and watched the tree-studded ground slowly fill the windshield as the sleek red Aerospatiale went into a controlled dive. If there was one thing he knew would get a rise out of his uptight employer, it was a sudden drop such as this.

After a few seconds, he eased the copter back into level flight just as the needle of the chopper's radar altimeter dipped below one-hundred-and-fifty feet AGL (_Above Ground Level_). He turned to spy the reaction of the bearded man and found him to be glaring back at him in a very unsettling manner.

Herb nervously cleared his throat and pointed to the altimeter mounted in front of him. "One-hundred-and-fifty feet AGL, just like you asked, Mr. –"

"It's Odah," the man interrupted.

"I beg your pardon?"

"My name is '_Odah_', _O-D-A-H_, not O'Day. Mispronounce a man's name once and it is forgivable, but do it again and it is highly disrespectful."

Though not outwardly noticeable in their earlier short conversations, Herb began to detect a bit of an accent hidden in Mr. Odah's tone.

"My apologies," Herb offered. "I have a bit of a problem hearing sometimes… particularly when the wife tells me to do the dishes." He let out a small chuckle, which was met with a painful silence. After a minute of awkward quiet, Herb decided to give conversation with the strange man another go. "So, Mr. Odah, any particular reason you want to stay at one-hundred-and-fifty feet?"

Though Herb couldn't see it from where he was sitting, in the back of the helicopter, Odah's friends both tensed up slightly and shot each other uneasy glances. Odah himself, however, merely smirked and shook his head.

"Above 200 feet and we will be visible to radar," he stated wryly.

"Actually it's five-hundred feet for civilian radar," Herb corrected. "And you don't have to worry about that anyway." He reached forward and tapped a small digital readout mounted in the center of the chopper's console. "I switched off our Transponder (_Aircraft ID_) before we left. As far as the FAA knows, this trip did_ not_ happen."

Odah snorted and relayed something to his friends in Arabic, which elicited a diminutive laugh from each of them.

"I was referring to military radar, Mr. Whittier, not civilian" the man advised.

"Oh…" Herb nodded, not sure what to make of the man's bizarre logic. "You seem to have a lot of knowledge about flying, Mr. Odah. Are you a pilot too?"

"Years ago, yes, when I was in the Air Force."

'_Finally, common ground,_' Herb though. "Air Force, eh? I got my flight training in the service. US Army 18th Cavalry '_Aircav_'," he announced proudly. "I flew an AH-1 Cobra for almost fifteen years through Panama, Grenada, _and_ the first Gulf War, how about you?"

"Me?" Odah asked, confused.

"Yeah, you… what kind of bird did you fly in the Air Force? Were you in a fighter, a bomber, or were you a chopper-man too?"

"I flew a Mikoyan-Gurevich 21 Fishbed," he stated calmly.

"Fishbed?" Herb sat silent for a moment racking his brain as to what type of aircraft the man was referring to. "Wait a minute, are you talking about the _MiG-21_ _Fishbed_? The _Soviet_ fighter jet?"

"It was sold to us by the Soviet Union, yes."

"Exactly _whose_ Air Force did you serve in?" Herb asked suspiciously.

"I was a Commander in the IQAF."

"_IQAF_? What's–"

"The Iraqi Air Force," Odah elaborated coldly.

At that moment, Herb decided that all further conversation was officially ended. His only objective from that point on was to get to Dusy Basin as quickly as possible and get rid of '_Commander_' Odah and his friends. Whatever they did after that didn't concern him one bit…

* * *

_To be continued..._


	7. Welcome to Neverland

* * *

**Chapter Seven –** Welcome to Never-Neverland  
_By: recon228

* * *

_

It's a base with no name, and yet it's known to the world by many titles:

Groom Lake…

…Dreamland…

…The Nellis-Skunk Works AATC…

…or most commonly – _Area 51_.

Regardless of what title the public chooses to give it, the general consensus is pretty much the same. It's considered by many people to be the most infamous place on Earth. It's a pop-culture icon featured in everything from violent first-person videogames, to children's television shows. It's a place where the laws of government and mankind end and a new reality begins. A place shrouded in secrecy. A research facility used for the storage and study of flying saucers, alien technology, yada, yada…

For years conspiracy theorists and alien enthusiasts have been developing theories about its secrecy in order to learn its secrets. Writers developed best-selling novels about the base. Directors used it in their movies. David Duchovny fought for years to learn the truth about it.

Those with imaginations closer to earth believe it to be an advanced aircraft testing facility whose super-secrecy enables it to operate above state, federal, and international law. It's widely accepted by aviation enthusiasts to be the birthplace of the SR-71, the F-117, the Scram Jet, and many other experimental stealth aircraft.

And yet with everyone busy developing grandiose and over-the-top theories about the facility; no one has ever stopped to consider the obvious… the _real_ truth about the facility…

…Area 51 is a fake. A façade.

In other words; Area 51 is the sober guy who comes stumbling out of a bar at 2:00am to distract the police away from his drunken buddy who's driving out the back lot.

With public and media attention focused solely on the desolate facility, no one ever stopped to ask any of the obvious questions:

_Why was such a top-secret facility built so close to public view, rather than right in the middle of the __Nellis_ _Air_ _Force_ _Base_ _Bombing_ _Range__ where nobody would ever see it? _

_Why was the private security force that guarded the base's northeastern perimeter also tasked with guarding its southwestern perimeter, an area miles within the Air Force bombing range? Who were they trying to keep out… or **in**?_

_Why did some of the Janet flights that came into the base offload their passengers directly to buses, which then left the base and traveled southwest toward White Hill Springs?_

_And why, on an unusually hot Friday afternoon, did no one notice that one of those passengers departing the early-morning Janet flight was a very nervous looking blue-skinned super-villain in shackles?_

They were all questions asked by no one, and answered in kind…

…they were all questions Dr. Drakken would come to _wish_ someone had taken the time to ask…

---

If there was one thing that could be said about Drew Lipsky, it was that he was no stranger to the criminal justice system. When one dedicates over fifteen years of their life trying to conquer the world, they're bound to find themselves on the wrong side of the law more than a few times. And when that same person is burdened with the unwanted presence of an overly gung-ho teenaged crime fighter, the encounters only tended to increase.

It seemed like every other month, the villain was sitting in some sort of interrogation room or jail cell. It had actually gotten to the point of predictability for him – the authorities would question him, threaten him with '_hard-time_' if he didn't cooperate, and eventually, they'd just give up. Then they would put him in a holding cell where Shego would bust them out before dinnertime. It had become nothing more than an annoying, yet predictable cycle…

…until today.

After once again being thwarted by Kim Possible and her buffoon sidekick, he and Shego had been taken into custody by Edwards Air Force Base Security Police and turned over to the FBI. From there, they were loaded into a government Learjet and flown to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. Upon arrival in Las Vegas, however, the authorities did something they had never done before, something that made Drakken's stomach tighten – they separated him and Shego.

Up until that point, they had always been kept together. And they had always escaped together. With them separated, Drakken had no idea when, or _if_, escape would even arrive.

While Shego and the FBI agents continued on in the Learjet, Drakken was led to a remote terminal in the corner of the airport and loaded into a waiting unmarked 737 airliner. From there it was a ninety-minute flight North to a remote desert military base––which he could have sworn looked very familiar––where he was again transferred into an unmarked bus for a thirty-minute drive south into the middle of the desert.

Since his departure from Las Vegas, Drakken's anxiety had been slowly rising. Nothing was occurring as it usually did. He should have been half-free by this point, not driving through the middle of the Nevada desert under armed military guard.

After a half-hour of navigating the rough dirt road, the bus turned off into a small gravel lot and came to a stop in front of an ominously ordinary-looking cement building. Stepping out into the hot desert wind, the mad scientist was led forcefully past a pair of camouflaged Humvees and a black government sedan and shoved into the building.

As ordinary as the outside of the facility was, the inside was just the opposite…

The lobby, if you could even call it a lobby, was about ten-by-twenty feet and had an unfamiliar military insignia painted on the cement floor. On the wall to the right of him was a hand-painted slogan that read "_Peace through oppression since 1968_" as well as several framed black-and-white photographs that appeared to chronicle the history of the facility he now found himself in. To the left was an empty desk, the surface of which was adorned with a copy of the _US Constitution_ impaled by a military Ka-Bar knife.

Bringing his eyes forward, Drakken saw two camouflaged soldiers waiting next to an open elevator door, above which was another slogan which read "_Welcome to Never-Neverland_".

Reaching the elevator, the government agents shoved Drakken through the doors and watched contently as they slid shut quietly behind him.

---

Forty minutes after Drakken was led into the isolated facility, the barren silence of the desert was once again broken as a single black Crown Victoria raced down the narrow dirt road and pulled into the gravel parking lot. It sat idling for several minutes before the driver finally cut the engine and the front doors swung open.

Stepping out of the air-conditioned comfort of the sedan and into the barren heat of the Nevada wasteland, Agent Johansson glanced around at his desolate surroundings and frowned. "God I hate the desert," he muttered to no one in particular. "It's no wonder we used to nuke this place in the '50's. Why'd they even build it out here anyway?"

Behind him, Agent Kryker stepped out from the driver's seat and chuckled, readjusting the semiautomatic pistol holstered to his hip and buttoning his coat. "Well, we had the choice of building it here, or downtown Berkeley." He glanced over at the younger agent and grinned. "As it turned out, Berkeley had tougher zoning laws."

Agent Johansson sighed, but said nothing.

They entered the concrete building and approached the pair of soldiers guarding the elevator. Agent Kryker flashed his ID to the sentry on the right and nodded toward Johansson. The sentry looked from the ID to the agent a few times, then snapped to attention and saluted while his partner opened the elevator and stepped aside.

For the first minute of the descent, neither man said a word. Agent Kryker pulled a stick of gum from his pocket and placed it in his mouth while Agent Johansson stood mute, staring at his reflection in the cold steel door of the large freight elevator.

Finally the younger agent turned toward his superior and opened his mouth to speak, but at the last minute he aborted his attempt.

"Something on your mind, Marcus?" Agent Kryker asked casually.

"No, sir," Marcus replied meekly, "I'm fine."

"You don't seem fine."

The young agent sighed and turned toward the older man. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Oh for God's sake," Kryker groaned, reaching forward and hitting the elevator stop button. Above them, they could hear the ancient gears moan as the elevator car ground to a halt. "First of all," he announced, turning to face his frightened colleague, "you're not in the Army anymore, so you don't need permission to say something. And second; don't call me '_sir_'. It's Adam, okay? I call you Marcus, just like I refer to Jacob and David by their first names."

"Sorry si-Adam," he replied, correcting himself at the last moment, "I'm just still used to regulations, that's all."

"Don't worry about it. I had the same problem when I left the Corps. Now what's up?"

"I…" Marcus hesitated for a moment. "I don't think I can do this, Adam."

Adam looked away from Marcus and the rookie agent cringed slightly, fearful of what was coming. He had heard a lot of rumors about the man standing next to him. Adam had a reputation amongst the other agents as being a stone-cold psychopath. With some of the stories Marcus had heard from David and Jacob, he suddenly found himself more terrified of the man standing next to him than any enemy he had ever faced in the military.

After several moments of tense silence, Adam looked up toward the faded ceiling and nodded understandingly. "How long have you been with The Firm, Marcus?"

"S-six weeks," the young man barely managed to force out.

"And how many of these interrogations have you participated in?"

"This would be my first, sir."

"Do you know what it means to wash-out before your first interrogation?" queried Adam.

"No…" Marcus replied fearfully.

Adam turned and placed a hand on the frightened agent's shoulder. "It means you're a human being."

"But… but what about David and Jacob?" he asked hesitantly. "They're both–"

"They're both a pair of mindless sociopaths who would rape and torture their own mothers if The Firm told them to," Adam replied sternly.

Marcus cringed slightly but said nothing.

"Truth be told, I knew from the moment you were assigned to me that you'd end up washing-out," the senior agent noted. "And that's not a bad thing either."

"But I was a soldier."

"And so was I. But we differ in one major capacity."

"What capacity is that, sir?"

Adam reached forward and released the stop button. "You have a conscience," he replied matter-of-factly as the elevator reached its destination and the doors slid open, "and I don't."

Marcus watched numbly as the older man straightened his tie, stepped out of the elevator, and began walking down the long concrete hallway. After a few seconds the rookie agent shouted, "So why do _you_ do it?"

As the elevator doors began to slide shut once again, Adam stopped and, without turning around, replied, "I do it because I enjoy it…"

---

Four hours…

That's how long Dr. Drakken had been sitting in the windowless one-table-two-chair interrogation room – for four hours! At first he had been extremely nervous about his predicament. And who wouldn't be, having witnessed the bizarre spectacle up in the lobby of the building.

_Peace through oppression since 1968. _

_Welcome to Never-Neverland. _

Those two sentences had been gnawing at his mind like a pack of hungry wolves. It didn't take a genius to recognize that no military or law enforcement organization would _ever_ allow such unorthodox slogans to be put up in their facilities.

After a while though, Drakken began to regain his composure and calm down. '_Unorthodox or not,_ _I'm still in their custody,_' he repetitively told himself.'_They can't actually do anything to me. All they can do is try to frighten me into cooperation._'

He was determined not to give them the satisfaction…

Finally, after waiting for hours, he heard footsteps approach and the heavy steel door swung open. The villain watched with an annoyed glare as a man in his late-twenties strolled casually into the room and swung the door shut behind him.

"Drew Lipsky," the man announced cheerfully, unbuttoning his sport coat and bracing his arms against the back of the empty chair across the table from Drakken. "Just the man we've wanted to talk to."

"I'm thrilled," Drakken replied snidely. "Do you realize I've been waiting in this room for over four hours?"

The man glanced up at the clock on the wall and laughed. "Four hours? More like forty minutes!" He reached his arm across the table and displayed his wristwatch as proof. "We just rigged that clock to run fast; confuses the hell out of whoever's waiting in here."

"_No wonder I never got thirsty,_" Drakken muttered under his breath. "Okay, so who are you supposed to be?"

"Special Agent Adam Kryker, FBI," Adam announced, withdrawing his badge and placing it on the metal table between them.

"I see," Drakken replied casually. He reached forward to pick up and examine the badge in front of him, but Adam quickly snatched it up again. "So I suppose you're here for the usual round of questioning, huh? Where's your file?"

"My what?"

"Your file," he reiterated. "Usually the person doing the interrogating brings a file with them. That way they have something they can pretend to read when they run out of things to say. They usually claim it's my '_rap-sheet_' or something, that way I'm supposed to grow nervous and wonder just how much they know about me."

"You're pretty familiar with interrogations, aren't ya?" Adam asked with a mischievous grin.

"I'm practically an expert," Drakken replied, mirroring the agent's grin.

Adam nodded and took a seat across from the villain. "Well I'm not really fond of all that traditional '_good cop/bad cop_' interrogative-style crap. Personally, I prefer my own '_reward system_' style of questioning."

"Reward system?"

"Yeah, y'know; you help me out by telling me what I want to know, and I reward you for it."

"With what, a dog biscuit?"

The agent laughed and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms in the process. "Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a five-pound steak dinner."

Drakken blinked several times in confusion. "A _steak dinner_?"

"Yup," the agent replied. "There's a town about an hour and a half north of here called Tonopah. They've got this great little steak house that serves the best damn steak you'll ever eat." He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "So here's the deal; you tell me what I need to know, and I'll take you up there for a steak dinner. No handcuffs, no questions; just two guys, two steaks, and a lot of beer."

"Is this some type of joke?" Drakken asked warily.

"I told you I don't favor that _Law and Order_ bullshit," Adam stated as he stood up and reached his arm across the table, offering his hand to the prisoner. "You give me the info I need, and I buy you dinner. Deal?"

"Okay," Drakken replied, reaching forward and shaking the man's hand, "I suppose I can agree to that."

"You won't regret it," Adam announced cheerfully. "Best damn steak you'll ever eat!"

"So what do you want to know?" Drakken asked. He was still a bit on-edge, but the agent's non-confrontational attitude had put him a bit at-ease.

Adam crossed his arms and looked down at Drakken. "Where's Kim Possible?" he asked in a casual tone.

---

"Just because I suggested the option of using a rifle instead of fishing gear doesn't mean I'm some sort of gun-nut y'know," announced Ron as he and Kim slowly made their way down the granite hillside toward the small lake at the bottom of the basin.

Having repacked all of their essential gear and stripped out of their dirty flight suits, the teens were taking their time getting down to the lake. Because of the high altitude, Kim was still worried about retriggering Ron's altitude sickness, so she wanted to make any change in altitude as gradual as possible.

Kim stopped walking and turned to face her partner. "If that's the case, then why are you carrying the rifle like that?" she asked, gesturing toward the survival rifle that Ron was carrying cradled in his arms like a soldier on patrol.

"What? This thing doesn't have a sling, okay," Ron explained defensively as they continued their descent. "I'm only carrying it like this because it's the safest way to do so. I'm not–"

"Ron," Kim interrupted.

"I'm serious," he insisted, "I'm not a gun-nut!"

"_Ron,_" Kim repeated with a bit more force.

"I'm in favor of all those machine gun bans and stuff," the blond continued unabated. "I'm even–"

"**_RON!_**"

"_What?_"

Kim held her finger to her lips and looked around cautiously. As the two of them stood in complete silence, the unmistakable sound of an approaching helicopter could be heard coming up fast from the east.

Ron turned to face his friend with an excited grin spread across his face. "Is it just me, or does that sound a lot closer than the other ones did?"

"Over there!" shouted Kim, pointing to the eastern opening of the basin.

Looking in the direction Kim was pointing, Ron saw the most beautiful sight he had ever laid eyes on – a small red helicopter was entering the basin and flying directly toward them.

Help had arrived…

* * *

_To be continued..._


	8. Death in the mountains

**Author's Note:** _Sorry about the delay in updating this, but I've had a lot of real-life stuff going on. Basically, to sum it up, I transferred to SWAT, spent a month at the FBI academy at Quantico, got promoted to Sergeant/Team Leader, found out my wife and I are going to have our first child in early September, and got shot in the head during a training excercise._

_Aside from all that, though, things are business as usual..._

_Getting back on track here, I decided to go back and make one significant change to this story - Agent Pollard. If you go back over the previous chapters, you'll notice he is nowhere to be found... instead this Adam Kryker guy seems to have taken his place! I decided to remove my Sean Pollard character from that role so as not to confuse people who have previously viewed him in the positive light I developed through my other story, **A Loss of Innocence**. I hope that doesn't cause too much confusion._

_And now, on with the story..._

**

* * *

Chapter Eight –** Death in the mountains  
_By: recon228_**

* * *

**

As soon as it became obvious that the Aerospatiale was coming their way, Kim and Ron both started running down the hill in the direction of the lake. As the teens reached a small cluster of lodgepole pines near the northern shore, they stopped and watched as the small red helicopter passed directly over them and slowed to a hover a quarter mile away on the other side of the lake.

"Thank you, God!" Kim cheered. "After all we've been through; I'm about ready to _kiss_ whoever's flying that thing!"

Ron dropped the backpack and rifle on the ground next to a fallen tree and pumped his fist in the air. "Booyah! Bueno Nacho here I come, baby!"

Kim turned and gave her friend a sly grin. "Right, Bueno Nacho," she said teasingly. "And reuniting with Tara and your family is just an added bonus, huh?"

Ron blushed slightly. "Oh, yeah… well hey; if _you_ don't tell Tara I put a Grande-sized Naco before her, then _I_ won't tell Josh you're gonna kiss the rescue pilot."

"Deal," Kim replied with a grin. "Now give me the signal mirror and the survival blanket so I can get their attention!"

Across the lake, the helicopter touched down gently near the lakeshore and began to shut down.

Ron knelt down next to his pack and began to fish out the signal gear. He pulled the mirror out of the bag and turned to hand it to Kim when a sudden chill ran down his spine…

…something was wrong…

…something was _very_ wrong!

Ron had long-ago come to terms with the fact that he had a lot of deep-rooted problems stemming from his colorful childhood. His unexplainable fear of random wildlife, coupled with his overactive imagination and playful immaturity had a detrimental effect on any credible paranoia and suspicion he sometimes expressed.

After a while, however, Ron had come to understand and, most importantly, differentiate the difference between his immature suspicions, and his genuine suspicions.

Drakken trying to steal Christmas – immature suspicion.

Gil seeking revenge despite being '_rehabilitated_' – genuine suspicion.

That's why, when the sight of the helicopter landing across the lake from them sent a shiver down his spine, Ron knew not to ignore it. He didn't know exactly what was giving him a hinky feeling, only that the prospect of jumping up and announcing their presence seemed inappropriate until they could properly gauge the situation.

He expressed his feelings to Kim, who regarded him with a look of disbelief. "Are you serious?" she asked, staring down at her partner as if he was insane. "We spent all this time praying to be rescued, and then when rescue _does_ come, you want to hide in the bushes?"

Ron looked up at his friend with pleading eyes. "Kim, please… this just doesn't seem right."

Her first impulse was to dismiss Ron's theory as just another over-the-top pop-culture-fueled conspiracy theory. But there was something about the level of determination in his eyes that made Kim hesitate. With a sigh, she knelt down next to her friend and pulled the binoculars from her cargo pocket.

"If you're wrong about this, you're buying me _and_ Josh all the Bueno Nacho we can eat."

"For our sake, I hope I _am_ wrong," Ron replied flatly.

Bringing the binoculars to her face and into focus, Kim watched as four men exited the helicopter. The pilot and another man in outdoor-type clothing met at the nose of the helicopter while two other men dressed in camouflage began unloading large black duffle bags from the rear of the craft.

"They're soldiers," Kim noted excitedly. "It's a military search and rescue team!" She turned and offered the binoculars to Ron.

"The military doesn't fly red A-Star's," Ron replied, looking through the binoculars. "That thing's civilian."

Kim thought for a moment and shrugged. "Well then maybe–"

She was interrupted as the unmistakable crack of a gunshot echoed across the quiet basin…

---

Herb allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief as he brought the Aerospatiale into a low hover over the southern shore of the small lake. Thanks to '_Commander_' Odah and his bizarre request for a low-altitude approach, the final leg of the flight had taken close to a half-hour longer than necessary. The inevitable turbulence from the pass had also given the 46-year-old pilot a splitting headache.

Glancing out the window, Herb checked the rocky shore beneath the helicopter for any hazardous objects. Satisfied that his landing zone was clear, he eased back on the control stick and lowered the collective. The Aerospatiale began to descend slowly until, with a gentle bump, its skids settled onto the granite surface and the bird came to a rest.

Once he was confident that his helicopter was settled, Herb reached forward and began to shut it down. As the massive rotor-blades began to whine to a stop above them, he turned to face his employer.

"Here we are, Mr. Odah," he announced, gesturing toward the barren valley that stretched out before them, "Dusy Basin, just like you requested."

Without any form of acknowledgment, Odah removed a handheld GPS receiver from his vest pocket and turned it on. After a minute of complete silence, the device retrieved its required satellites and displayed the pin-point latitude and longitude of their location.

Odah jotted the numbers down on a small notepad and handed it back to one of his men. While Herb waited silently, the man in the backseat compared the numbers with a set of his own and nodded, handing the notebook back to Odah.

Finally, approximately two minutes after Herb had last spoken, Odah turned to him and nodded. "It appears you have fulfilled your part of the agreement, Mr. Whittier. I shall oversee my men while they remove our equipment, then you may go. We will not be needing your services any further."

'_Fine by me, Abdul._' thought Herb. "Just glad I could be of service. Since we're gonna be going our separate ways here, I assume you'll be paying now?"

For the first time since they had met, Odah smiled. "Of course, Mr. Whittier, I assume you'll not mind that I pay you in cash?"

"Cash is good," Herb replied eagerly. "Easier to keep from the IRS that way."

"If you will please give my men and I a moment of privacy while we unload, I will give you're your payment and you may be on our way."

The pilot nodded, stepped out of the helicopter, and pointed to a spot near the lakeshore approximately fifteen feet from the helicopter. "I'll go ahead and wait over there. Just come get me when you're ready."

As Herb walked off toward the water's edge, Odah dismounted the chopper, followed by his two associates. As the former commander made his way around to the port side of the helicopter, the men removed three large black duffle bags from the rear of the craft and dropped them on the ground.

Once they were sure Herb was out of eyesight, both men opened the smallest bag and removed two military vests and pistol belts. When they had donned their combat gear, they began stocking every available pocket with hand grenades, weapon magazines, and boxes of ammunition. They also removed two compact assault rifles and loaded them. Once they were fully armed, the men slung their rifles over their shoulders and looked over at Odah.

"_Ne hakkinda belgili tanimlik pilot?_" the closest man asked, gesturing in the direction Herb had walked off.

Odah drew a large-frame semi-automatic pistol from inside his jacket and grinned. "_I -ecek dağıtmak ile onu._"

Both men nodded understandingly and returned to unloading the duffle bags.

---

While Odah and his men were arming-up on the port side of the helicopter, Herbert Whittier stood at the edge of the small lake and looked out across the barren granite basin.

'_It wasn't always like this,_' he thought, watching the wind send small ripples across the glassy surface of the water.

He was a 46-year-old divorced bush pilot who made the bulk of his income running no-questions-asked flights into the back country to drop-off drug dealers, poachers, and who knows what else. He had once served his country with pride as an Army helicopter pilot, but now, all he did was help criminals sully the pristine image of a wilderness he had once taken pride in hiking with his son, Mark.

When he was younger, Mark had always looked up at his father with pride. Now, as a teenager, he barely even acknowledged him. Most people would attribute it to ordinary teenage rebellion, but something deep inside Herb's gut told him otherwise.

The reason Mark barely spoke to him was because he had seen the man his father had become. He was just as guilty as the men he transported into the park; he was a drug dealer, he was a poacher, he was a _criminal_…

…and even his own son was ashamed of him.

Herb dropped his head in shame. "I'm sorry, Mark."

"Mark?"

Herb jumped slightly as Odah's stony voice spoke-up behind him.

"Who's Mark?"

Spinning around, Herb forced a grin and shook his head. "Nobody, just talking to myself."

Odah gave him a perplexed look, but otherwise let the matter drop. "I have your payment; cash, as we agreed."

As soon as Herb caught sight of the cash bundle in Odah's hand, his mood instantly brightened. The somber image of his son was quickly replaced with the image of financial stability for about half a year.

"You're a man of your word, Mr. Odah," Herb said, snatching the bundle of cash from the man in sunglasses. "I respect that in a client."

As Herb stood busily, counting his payoff, Odah casually positioned himself so that he was standing behind the pilot. Convinced that the man's attention was occupied by the cash in his hands, Odah pulled the pistol from behind his back and leveled it on the back of Herb's head.

Herb barely even had time to process the sound of the gun being cocked behind him before everything went permanently black…

---

"What are you talking about?"

**_BANG!_**

Drakken let out a surprised yelp as Agent Kryker bolted upright and slammed his chair against the edge of the table. The sharp crash of metal-on-metal reverberated around the inside of the small concrete room like a gunshot.

At that point, the villain was pretty much prepared for the agent to launch into a full-blown verbal tirade. Surprisingly, however, rather than yell, Adam simply removed his coat and strolled toward the door.

At first, Drakken thought he was leaving altogether. But just before he reached the door, the agent diverted his course slightly and flung his coat over the aged video surveillance camera mounted on the wall. With the camera's field-of-view sufficiently blocked, Kryker walked back over toward the table and casually leaned against the wall.

Drakken looked up at the man and smirked. "More scare tactics, Agent?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You throw your jacket over the camera so I think no one will see what you do to me, right?"

"Not really," Kryker replied with an amused snort. "That camera hasn't worked since Reagan was in office. Only purpose it's served for the last decade is as a makeshift coat-rack."

Drakken chuckled and shook his head. "Faulty clock, broken camera… and I thought **_I_** had funding issues. You ever think about outsourcing, Agent Kryker? It's worked wonders for some of my past operations."

"Facilities like these are a little hard to get funding for," Adam replied with a smirk. "It seems nobody really wants their name on the utilities bill."

"That's a shame," Drakken replied snidely.

Pushing away from the wall, Adam walked back over to the table and leaned in toward Drakken. "Cut the crap, Drew. I'm still waiting for you to answer my question."

"What question?" Drakken asked smugly.

Adam leaned back slightly and glared at him.

"Oh, that's right, you said something about Kim Possible being missing."

"I never said she was missing," Adam noted.

"You asked _me_ where she was. I assume that means she's missing."

"Well, you assumed right," said Adam. He walked back over and leaned against the wall. "Now where is she?"

"How should I know?" Drakken replied with a shrug. "You should probably ask that buffoonish sidekick of hers; they pretty much seem to be joined at the hip."

Adam chuckled and shook his head. "Yeah, well, funny thing about that; it seems Mr. Stoppable is MIA as well."

For the first time, the full realization of what the agent was saying hit the villain – Kim Possible and her side-kick were missing… there was _nobody_ left to thwart his plans for world domination! Drakken tried to contain his glee, but it was just too much to control.

"You mean… Possible _and_ that other one are missing? And… and you don't know where she is?" Drakken threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, this is just too good to be true!"

Drakken's celebratory laughter was cut short when Adam rushed over, grabbed the villain by his lab coat, and pulled him forward until they were eye-to-eye.

"_Laugh all you want, blue-boy,_" the agent hissed, "_but the longer I go without getting an answer to my question, the worse it's gonna be for **you**!_"

"Oh please," Drakken scoffed, breaking free of the man's grip and sitting back in his chair. "You don't scare me, Agent Kryker. I've been in a lot of rooms like this and been drilled by men a lot scarier than you. So if you think this Vic Mackey impression of yours is going to sway me, you're going to walk away from here very disappointed."

Agent Kryker opened his mouth to speak, but a shallow knock at the door cut him off. Seething, the agent marched over to the door and threw it open. In front of him, Agent Johansson shrank back like a frightened puppy.

"**_WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?_**" he screamed at the cowering agent. "**_I THOUGHT YOU QUIT!_**"

"I-I-I–" Marcus stammered, holding up a piece of printer paper like an iron shield.

"**_GIMME THAT!_**" Adam ripped the sheet of paper from the man's hand and began to examine it. It was a teletype from the home office.

"I-I'm sorry to interrupt you, but t-there's been an incident," Marcus finally managed to force out. He glanced past his boss and motioned toward Drakken, who was sitting behind the table with a look of smug satisfaction on his face. "It looks like his friend... that green-skinned woman… she managed to overpower her escorts _and_ the flight crew. She… uh… she's taken control of the plane. NAADC (_North American Aerospace Defense Command_) has been tracking its path for the past fifty minutes. She, uh, re-routed the plane just outside of Denver and is currently heading south over the Colorado Rockies."

Kryker nodded and turned back to face Drakken, whose smirk was now a full-blown grin. The grin, however, faded instantly when the villain saw the look of sadistic pleasure on Adam's face.

"You hear that, Drew?" the senior agent asked mockingly. "It looks like your girlfriend has managed to murder six federal agents and hijack a US Government aircraft." He turned back toward Marcus and handed the bulletin back to him. "Intercept?"

"Uh, sir, w-we don't actually know for sure that those agents _are_ dead." Marcus paused and glanced over at Drakken, who was nodding in agreement. "In fact, from what I've seen of her past actions–"

"I don't give a shit about your personal opinion," Adam interrupted. "I asked you a question!"

Marcus gulped and nodded. "Y-yes, sir. Two Air National Guard F-16s took off from Colorado Springs for the intercept. They're reporting the plane appears to be under manual control, but it's not acknowledging radio contact."

"Then we're going to assume the FBI agents on-board are all dead," Adam announced casually. "Order the F-16s to engage the target while it's still over an uninhabited area." He turned toward Drakken and smirked. "Shoot it down."

Hearing that, Drakken jumped up and sent his chair sliding back against the wall behind him. "You can't do that!"

"I just did," Adam replied, turning back toward Marcus.

Stepping around the table, Drakken began to advance toward the agent, whose back was turned. "You can't just shoot down a plane! We have rights, we have the Constitution of the-"

Before he could finish his sentence, Agent Kryker spun around, drew his sidearm, and fired one round at the advancing super-villain. The bullet tore through Drakken's left ear and sent him stumbling back against the wall.

"Your Constitutional rights have just been revoked," replied Adam.

---

Danny decided to stop for an early lunch at the crest of Granite Pass. In the years prior, it had always taken the ranger until the mid-afternoon to reach the pass. Recently, though, Danny had been making an effort to go for a run every morning before work, and his increased physical endurance was more than noticeable in the distance covered, and his lack of fatigue.

Taking a seat on a large granite boulder near the trail, Danny pulled a bottle of water and a Power Bar from his pack. As he removed the wrapper and took a bite out of the bar, Danny caught a glimpse of something small and blue lying near a cluster of Manzanita bushes a short distance from the trail. Shoving the rest of the bar into his mouth, and taking a swig of water, Danny hopped off of the boulder and walked over to the brush where the object lay.

Picking up the object, Danny took a moment to examine it up close. It was an electronic device, about the size of a small paperback novel, and had a small video screen in the center of it which had been cracked.

At first Danny thought it was some sort of portable GPS receiver, but the fact that the entire device was made out of bright blue plastic seemed to hint that whatever it was, it was geared more toward a child or teenager than an adult.

"Must be one of those new PSP things all the kids are going nuts over," Danny said aloud.

Based on the cracked screen, and scraped case, Danny doubted the toy was usable. Out of pure curiosity, however, the ranger turned it back over and pressed one of the large rubber buttons just below the broken screen.

As he stared down at the screen, the device made a small humming noise and the screen flickered to life. For a brief moment, Danny thought he caught a glimpse of a young African American boy staring back at him, but the screen popped and went black before he could be sure.

Danny was about to give up and shove the device into his pack when he heard static coming out of the speaker. After a loud squelch, he began to hear what sounded like a kid's voice emanating from the device amidst heavy static.

"…_im? Oh m…od! Kim…alive! …you hear me? Try to…this connect… open, I'm…run…search…locate…Kim? …im! …_"

Finally, with one last pop, the device went dead and began to smoke. Worried about the possible fire danger it presented, Danny buried it next to the boulder and started off along the trail.

Just as he began the descent from Granite Pass, the park ranger thought he heard the distant report of a gunshot, but it was too far away to tell for sure…

* * *

_To be continued..._


End file.
